everything just seems so pointless. at the end of the week its just back to square one again, nothing seems to have changed much. weekends are supposed to be for relaxing, regaining momentum for the next week... for basically whatever you want i guess. but they always seem to get more and more lethargic. and some weeks it just seems worse than others... had honours night on friday. it was good i guess.. but i had a kind of 'tts it?' feeling. worked so hard for dance for 2 years... but for what ends? to what purpose? with just a snap of the fingers everythings over and done with. it really puts life into perspective. for me especially... it all seems so far away now, and that really sucks.

i really wonder what i've learned from this 'jc experience'. the worse part is knowing at the end that 'it was great while is lasted'. but now that its over... what does the future hold? without a goal or aim in life... nothing seems worth the while. there's no escaping the desolate hole of loneliness and depression. once your'e caught all you can do is occupy yourself with distractions and false hope sand ideals. thats what the 2 years seem likfe. now htat its ending, its the same old story again.

when its all so temporary, it makes everything look just plain fake. its our memories that we live for, but just how much do our memories account for? i dont want to be able to look back and say 'i had that' but rather be able to look forward and say 'i have it'. at the end of things it just all seems to be pleasantries and nothing much more. what does it mean to have a friendship? i search myself for the answer and i still think that i am yet to find it. somethings just missing and i cant pinpoint it.. im just sick of it all. sick of myself.

i must sound like baby... immature and emotional child. struggling in this life, and yet lost in a world of his own.




so cold... my brother's study table haaassss to be located directly under the blast of the aircon :s and it has to share space with the pc haha.. hence me blogging and distracted by chatting instead of studyin as planned =p at least i managed to read some more of the intro to othello! its really useful =)

meanwhile the days seem to get more dreary as the A's come closer.. feel like im starting to distance and isolate myself a little. could be the stress of the oncoming exams... or the stress that i'm not studying despite that stress.. haha =p anyway the days just seem to be lonelier, i feel more cynical and easily depressed than usual.. sigh.

plus im starting to feel sick... physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. not so much the questioning of life now, but more of the 'mired in the swamp life' kinda feeling.
bleah. pull me out please.

on a more positive note... i think my vocab is starting to widen! dictionary.com is sooooo useful :D especially when your'e too lazy to check a dictionary =)




sent off my brother today... and i find it just amazing how little interaction we've had over the past few years. i hate the very idea of there being 'excuses' like how we're so different or how we've had our own lives, or whatever. i mean, it goes much deeper than that. i just feel that i don thave any solid connection with any of my family... or with anyone really in particular. not even God... maybe much less so God. friends come and go... i mean like, its easy isnt it? one day you know someone, the next you forget he/she even exists? its like i'm stuck in some kind of perpetual slide, floating around without an anchor. and so my brother's gone... i'm left wondering if i'll ever get to know him.

things can happen in stages, they can happen all at once, they can not happen at all. whatever the case... it always seems to happen all at once. whatever it is, everything builds up slowly before coming on like an avalanche of stress, tension and depression. loneliness never felt this real. you live all oyur life dremaing that anything is possible, expecting that good things will happen to you if your'e patient, knowing that at the end of it all everything will be fine because... thats the way life should be, isnt it? but things dont always end up the way they should.

i really like this analogy about the swimming duck? all calm on the outside but paddling like made underwater? oh tts mad not made, small typo. but what happens when the paddling stops..everything numbs? thats when you sink. and i dont want that to happen. so why do i keep paddling? because i know that there is a reason behind it all... i have to believe. i guess when you have nothing else to lose, you just HAVE to believe. the loneliness might be real, but i dont need to feel that way. its not how your life is, its how you choose to live it. we're just wired for so much more.

As we fade into obscrurity
what makes it all worthwhile?
dreams, perhaps
that we defined our lives with
relationships, perhaps
that we moulded our lives upon
memories, perhaps
that we lived our lives for.
And as we fade into obscrurity.

But perhaps... there is something we live for after all.

For love.





*yawn* think i've yet to click into gear yet... still slowing crawling along, but like gathering speed slowly lah heh -hopefully- got loads and loads to catch up and revise... i think im in trouble for all of my subs erps. cant imagine taking maths now, i'd be swamped.

oh well... managed to finish catcher in the rye today! =) its a really good book, everyone should read it haha. i think i should get around to finishing prozac nation... i must make sure i do some reading everyday haha... i think it'll help to keep my brain working and get the brain juices working for studying... =p trying to rekindle my passion for reading anyway.

guess nothing really special has been happening... results arent so hot, infact they kinda suck. i guess i wasnt really aiming very high, but it still hits you hard when u dont do well... when u do badly infact. back to the grind, back to the grind.




*yawn* what an eventual day its been... an eventful week definitely =p but... hvae been neglecting my studies ahhhhh! aiya but who can blame me right... if not there's no point having a holiday is there? hahaha trying to justify and ease my guilt now =D

anyhow been meeting ppl like mad haha, ran into leanne on the bus while going jitterbugs today... then saw sinclair ang at jitterbugs haha. not to mention that we also saw nathaniel ho at esplanade.. *haha* these poor singapore idol people have become like 'instant celebrities'... how boring is singapore eh? =p but! TROCKS! omg it was damn damn damn good!!! incredibly funny heh, the start was already funny when the guy was giving a short introduction, and making jokes on european names like 'thankfully, we have replaced natasha notgoodenuv' and other jokes like tt hehe =) seeing men do pointe work is scary... plus their balance is just crazy :s 4 pirouettes! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. haha i think one of the 'coolest' was the dying swan heh, where the guy was wearing this tutu that just kept shedding and endless stream of feathers until almost the whole stage was covered heh, and the group of guys and their slapstick humour was just hilarious lah =D was really funny when the guy came out at the end of their swan lake and took a picture of the guy who had been erh, killed by the sorcerer. hahaha =)

and! ichiban boshi is damn good! i always noticed it whenever i went to esplanade, but now they lowered their prices to 1.90 per plate and its soooooo nice! the quality is definitely better than suki sushi at cine... but suki sushi still rocks. haha i just love sushi lah =p of yah but be careful the chawamushi there cost 4.80, not 1.90 haha stupid me thought it would cost the same as the normal plates =p dont get tricked! and maybe agari isnt tt bad afterall... haha tts green tea =) oh supposedly agari is for tea you drink after the meal, and demawa before... haha tts from some episode of some anime lol.

anyhoo... sch timetable has been supposely cut short, but we all know that its just an attempt to deceive everyone that we end earlier... we end at 230 everyday now, but! the last period of everyday is lunch... hinting that we might have to stay back a lot a lot ;p not only that... i have 8 bloody free periods -_- and they all occur 1-2 periods BEFORE the end of school, meaning i cant zao early on any day. bleaugh. i bet thats their intention, because maths is clearly the most dropped subject in the arts. haha oh well =p

tmrw HOPEFULLY signifies the end of all my pre-enlistment hooha (cannot say crap, big brother is watching... hahaha im bored) with any luck it'll be the end of it heh. been wasting too much of my time travelling there only to spend 5 minutes doing NOTHING. sigh.

things left to do

- have a barbecue!!!! i think tt would be fun fun fun heh
- have a mass sleepover! more fun! (and get a chalet, etc.etc. heh)
- go sentosa again! i miss the beach
- think of more things to do, im tired now =p

which means... my favourite nightly pasttime! hahaha zzzzzzzzZZZZzzz.




cul - ture
n.

a. the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought
b. the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action, and artifacts and depends upon the human capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations

with the existence and development of culture, how does choice factor into our lives? how much control do we retain over what we do and who we are, and are we just nothing more but empty vessels living "by the times", behaving not the way we truly are but instead the way we are made to; we are influenced beyond our means of choice.

to put all this into context, i was just watching ghost in the shell: stand alone complex. one of the story archs involves "the laughing man case", where the main idea is that (or what i believe) the creation of what i'd like to call a 'sub-culture' can influence people to do things that they otherwise would not do; it acts like a catalyst to trigger reactions, in this case crime/criminal activities. one episode was called 'the mimic dances' in which many people tried to assassinate one man because of an isolated assassination threat that was made on tv. each of them did it for different reasons, but what makes it more compelling is the concept that they were all inspired by "the laughing man", who supposedly perpetrated a crime 6 years ago. its the same as copycat killers who mimic serial killers; call it inspiration or lack of originality, but the scary thing is that from a single isolated incident springs en masse reactions. what's even scarier is the ending sequence to the story arch, where the laughing man's face (its an emoticon, generated by imposing the image onto people's AI - almost everyone is cybernetic) has become just like the smiley, pasted on jackets, bags, buttons etc. the sub-culture has more control over us than we know it.

what is culture? the idea of it being the integrated pattern of human behaviour instantly suggests that there exists this idea whereby people behave in similar manners, perhaps not because they wish to do so, but because its the way we are wired; its the pattern that we fit into in order to be part of society. otherwise we'd all be revolutionaries in our own rights. this then implicates each and every one of us as having lost a sense of who we truly are, as we longer behave as we would, but instead behave guided by the norms of society.

in this sense, how much control do we retain over our choices and the decisions we make. the idea that it takes just one isolated incident to spark a sub-culture that can change the lives of many people forever by influencing their decisions scares me. it also puts forward the concept that we are nothing more than mere mimics, copycats who do what we do because of what we see, and hear, and thus believe. thus this then negate choice? when the decisions we make become so contrived and no longer 'individual' choices, but rather a subset of herd mentality, it seems rather that we just become part of the culture, rather than choice-driven individuals.

when you think about it, just how many of us can claim to be 'individuals' in the full sense of the word? but i'd like to think of it in another way. instead of saying tt we are pinned down by society, i'd prefer to see it as we are informed because of society, and we make choices that best suit us, rather than are forced to make choices based on circumstance. its more of the inclination of the individual that determines how we react, rather than a direct overarching influence caused by any one subculture. everything becomes layered, any maybe our choices arent as clear cut as they seem to be. i guess everything influences something in someway, but its our 'choice' of reaction that really drives us. afterall, its us who control the pattern of behaviour; we determine the subculture, not the other way around.

the lauging man face had a circle of words around it that said 'i thought what i'd do was, i'd pretend i was one of those deaf-mutes'. if all you can do it see, it reduces you to merely a follower, a copycat. but when u can pretend, you gain the power to choose, to control. maybe choice is more scary than i thought.

perhaps there is much more to life than it seems.




there are times when you just look back and reflect... regret even, on a choice that you've made. this is one of those times. no matter how hard i've tried to tell myself its just a choice i've made that will eventually lead to someplace, to be a lesson to have learnt, regret still creeps in and plagues me. in retrospect it might have been a lack of foresight, laziness, fear, any one of those excuses would have worked. but i doubt i ever gave my choices enough thought, or else i would not be feeling the same amount of regret that i feel now. its been so long since i've ever regretted anything, and thats probably because God had been guiding me with his hand. in this case i thought it was a simple choice, do something which i've planned out already, and wanted to do, against something that cropped up kinda last minute and which i wasnt really prepared to commit to. of course its only now that i realise tt might have been my last chance to perform ever again, especially with that group of people and on the stage infront of the whole school.. on one of the days that it would have counted the most. but as it is life moves on... everything passes so fast, i just lose track of the days, nothing seems to mean too much anymore.

even the smallest spark of life and love seems worth cherishing, but at the same time it fades so fast that it doesnt seem worth chasing either. its a one week break that we have to "enjoy", and i've definitely set my heart to doing everything that i possibly can. in the last week i've already 1. wrapped up my prelims 2. bowled and had fun at ssc 3. played soccer twice with a movie in between on the same day 4. slacked at dawn's house while helping out abit in making cards 5. had dinner at swensens and shot pool at btp 6. gone to sentosa and played volleyball/frisbee/tanned/fooled around then watched our dance production at deb's house +j1 committee handover 7. spent a day resting at home preparing for 8. dancing in the morning followed by tennis and then swimming and finally watching troy (today's itenary hopefully) but yet it all doesnt seem to have much significance anymore. everythings swooping by so fast, i know before i know it it'll be back to the grind again, slogging out for the As... *sigh* whats the point in cramming everything into a holiday break and then just sliding back into work? it seems to mean less when you just move from phase to phase without giving it much thought at all.

while on one hand i believe that my "cyclical" depression has ended, on the other hand i fear and sometimes believe that its just slipped under the surface, and is no longer cyclical but just an undercurrent of depression that pops up here and there when my high moments fade away. like today, when i spent the whole day at home pretty much alone and doing nothing at all, playing abit of pc and watching abit of tv, nothing much at all. when u live a moment in anticipation of another, it feels like a moment lost. but don't we live our lives in one great anticipation, in the anticipation of the return of Jesus? i guess i can hardly be called religious, with my sunday school knowledge and all, but it just seems like a huge meaningless waiting game. why learn things when you'll just forget all of it? i can even recognise the learning aspect in school, such as how i realise that i really appreciate the fact that chinese was forced upon us, because now i really respect the language and know how useful it is, and how cool it is to be able to speak 2 languages (or at least understand chinese abit lah =p) but once we leave this material earth... dont our memories stay behind? *shrug* i dont know, but anyhow there are days when i just feel left behind, mired in the incandescent moments of our lives and unable to move on, unable to see the path that lies ahead and instead just flitting along aimlessly, pointlessly.

surely there must be more to life than this.





there are so many questions in life that i doubt i'll ever find the answers to. science and logical reasoning can only prove theories and put forward hypothesis and concepts, but the truth will never be answered unless we turn and acknowledge Him. there are just somethings in life that perhaps we weren't meant to understand, nor to appreciate. but thats life isnt it? how do you reconcile the spiritual and the intellectual? are we then claiming that there is a marked separation between the 3 main aspects of man: the heart the mind and the soul. i dont think so, each aspect greatly affects the other one, and neither can stand alone. i guess it depends on which aspect we choose to listen to the most; to me everything comes down to choice.

i've always thought about choice, what it meant, how it exists, how we use it. and i believe that everything occurs because of choice, it is in some sense the driving force in life. coincidences happen because of choice; everything just boils down to that simple word: choice. like right now? i'm deciding to blog and air my thoughts. and if you read this, you might begin to ponder about all these as well, and maybe you'll talk to your friend about it, and he might introduce this topic to his cell group, and maybe a budding young philosopher might end up being the next nobel prize winner. see how choice causes everything? choice makes the world go round.

with choice comes something v important... regret. i say important not because regret is something that we should have, but because it can control what we do, and that in a way opposes the choice we have. once regret sinks in, future choices become difficult, and life becomes much more blurred. like how u can wonder about what you choose to say, what you choose not to say, what actions to take, and what you shirk away from. but once you believe that every choice that you make is made for a reason, and that everything is a learning journey, then perhaps we might come one step closer to understanding our purpose here on earth; the reason of our existence.

one thing is for sure though. while we exist... we get tired... so we need sleep. =p

josh. 22. acsian for life

Hpps/Acs(i)/Acjc/Smu SocSc

living life in the fast lane,
missing the smell of roses.
always looking for the stars,
all i see are grey clouds.

learn japanese and french
learn to cook
drive a sporty convertible
travel to japan & europe
rent my own apartment

find God again
fall in love

ashypoo becca chewie clara dawny dalena eugy joy kexian liz luke mich stella tengchi vinia yp zhern aH'04 prompics zoopics

listening to: 周杰倫. My Chemical Romance. Tristan Prettyman.

watching: Lost Season 4. Friday Night Lights Season 1

reading: Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow.

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